Oxford Schools’ Debate at Kings College Taunton

Alex, Sam, James, Finley, Monty, Lily, Hannah and Anna have been practising in Wednesday afternoon and Friday lunchtime meetings of our Debating Society, and all enjoyed the great challenge of this format: just 15 minutes to consider the motions and plan their opposing or proposing cases, then five minutes to make them, facing live challenges from schools across the South West throughout.

Our teams debated two motions: whether we should regret our country’s annual commemoration of war and whether workers should be given the opportunity to give up some rights in return for higher pay.

All of our teams pit in performances that were a credit to the school, and, as always with these competitions, came away much enlarged in understanding of both the format and the issues debated. We narrowly missed a place in the finals, but with some very promising debaters coming up from the 5th Year, the future of debating at Truro School looks bright. It was the last competition for our stalwart Upper Sixth debaters who have shown such energy and commitment over the last two years: I will miss them, but am sure the debating societies of universities across the country will be lit up by them in years to come.

Anna Selvey
Head of English